


Extremely poor manners

by kpdiddy



Series: a GATEway to the void [2]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game), ゲート 自衛隊彼の地にて斯く戦えり - 竿尾悟 | Gate: Jietai Kanochi nite Kaku Tatakaeri - Sao Satoru (Manga)
Genre: Gen, Grimmchild is a teen now and is starting to take some of Grimm's personality traits, Oh yeah and nightmares, PoV character is in one of the Imperial legions so that should be obvious, Saderans getting rekt as usual, They know about the bugs but not the troupe or other magic wielders, bit of canon-typical violence described, bit of fighting both described and implied, is this how you tag lol, lotsa unnamed generic imperials mentioned, planned this one out unlike last time so it should read better, slightly disturbing imagery in said nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 22:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17927924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kpdiddy/pseuds/kpdiddy
Summary: On their way to the battle lines that lie just before the gate, a Saderan legion begins to become afflicted by mass nightmares and must locate the cause if they are to maintain any semblance of battle-readiness when they arrive to reinforce their fellows.





	Extremely poor manners

**Author's Note:**

> So as with the last part, read the fic this is based on for additional context for the setting as well as other shorts and plenty of lore discussion! 
> 
> Or you could just put reader mode on to skip everything but threadmarked posts if you wanna get things done quickly.

Not again.  
  
  
Why did it always have to be this one?  
  
  
What did he do to deserve this?  
  
  
He recognized this place, well not  _this_  place in particular, but the scenery was pretty much identical. Every time he’d had this horrible dream it had taken place here, in this twisted red hellscape, there was almost no ground as far as the eye could see, yet one could traverse easily enough by just taking a step forward. A patch of ground would form underneath as if it had been there all along, the problem was that said ground wasn’t always flat, which meant one could easily run into a wall that materialized inches from their face or trip on a decline they couldn’t have predicted coming. This uncertainty of movement along with the infinitely long sightlines only exacerbated the terror he felt when _it_ finally showed up, as it always did.  
  
  
Somewhere along the horizons of red clouds and strange floating webs of an equally sanguine color, it would always appear eventually. This horrible, savage looking creature, large, surprisingly fast, amazingly perceptive, and very very  _ **red**_. If it weren’t for the glowing eyes in its sweeping gaze he’d likely have been snuck up on by it more often than not, given how quiet it was before it noticed him and how well it blended in with the rest of the scenery. But eventually, as it always had, it noticed him, and it chased. And the noises,  _oh the noises_ , the thing sounded equal parts in agony at moving and psychotically motivated to do so to catch up to him. Sometimes he got away long enough to wake up on his own, sometimes not (and that was never pleasant, least of all because he’d lose sleep over the encounter), but he’d never evaded the thing long enough to wake up without it noticing him at all.  
  
  
As it turned out, tonight just wasn’t his night, the terrain this time around was far less forgiving, and he’d alerted the monster much earlier that usual after stumbling over a small step up that materialized in front of him, so he ran. He ran and vaulted and slid, all in effort to escape the demon haunting his dreams, and be able to wake pleasantly and well-rested for the coming day. Much to his misfortune however, the ground had different ideas, and he found himself having run into a dead end upon a wall building itself in front of him with side walls stretching back a fair distance. The dream demon, with impeccable timing, then turned into the “alleyway” behind him.  
  
  
Then it charged. After raising up, it barreled towards him, taking up the entire length of the alley. With nowhere to go, all he could do was brace for the impact, despite knowing it wouldn’t do much to ease the pain he was about to feel.  
  
  
The thing hit hard, pinning him to the back wall with an impact that would’ve likely shattered his ribs had this not been a dream, and in that moment, in that single moment of intense physical anguish, he was set upon by an equally terrifying psychological barrage. Visions of his friends and family, all dying horribly, dismembered and battered, burned and tortured. Everything he was currently fighting to protect, everything that could go wrong should his country fail, in that single moment of pain, he felt all of what could go wrong come to pass.  
  
  
There was only a single hit and he was finished, slumping to the ground in a heap, he was unable to move as the monster backed up briefly. If he wasn’t in utterly debilitating pain at the moment he may have even felt the vaguely burnt, charcoal-y taste in his mouth. The monster then raised back slightly with it’s razor-sharp forelimbs, then brought them down.  
  
  
He awoke with a start, not that he should still be surprised since this always happens if he gets caught by that dream demon. What really caught his eye is what, or more accurately,  _who_  he saw inside his tent facing away from him.  
  
  
It couldn’t have been too large, at best the size of a teenager. It stood upright on two spindly black legs, with a dark grey cloak of some sort softly billowing around it in the non-existent wind inside the tent. While its body could be vaguely described as having human-like proportions, that same could not be said for its head, tapering to two points like the horns of a beast, with what appeared to be a white mask of some description in front, though it was difficult to tell with it facing the other direction.  
  
  
Just then, the creature turned slightly and gave the soldier a sideways glance, and in that moment he knew it must have some connection to his unusual nightmare. It’s eyes, they glowed red just like the sky of his nightmare, in the small parts at the end of the cloak that were still billowing about, one could on occasion see that the inside of said cloak was an equally red shade, and in its hand… a red flame? How was that possible? Fire is orange, not red, that seals it, it must be responsible for these nightmares!  
  
  
Unfortunately for the soldier, his body did not act as quickly as his mind did, and he only watched on as the small creature before him lightly popped the unusual flame into the mouth the soldier hadn’t realized was there before giggling briefly and vanishing in a puff of fittingly red smoke. Cursing himself for not acting sooner, the soldier realized he wouldn’t have another chance until the next night and resolved to get what little sleep he could for the remainder of the night.  
  
  
Morale had been at an all time low within the legion as of late. More and more soldiers had been beset by these exhausting recurring nightmares, productivity was down too, and there had rumblings of some planned desertions even. The soldier wouldn’t allow that, he had been brooding all day, thinking on what to do to catch that small devil, as it was surely the source of the legion’s affliction. He had a plan this time, it was mostly based in theory and guesswork based on his past experiences, but he had to at least try it.  
  
  
\---  
  
  
Eventually, nighttime came around, and the soldier made every effort to get to bed quickly, getting any last duties for the day dealt with and dinner over with, excusing himself to bed under the guise of fatigue soon after dinner. His plan hinged on getting to sleep quickly, so he had to calm himself down in bed after doing final preparations, assuring that his weapon was close at hand and his mat prepped to be easy to leave.  
  
  
Sleep took him as it always did, and like so many nights before, the soldier found himself in that red void yet again, but this time, things would be different. Instead of skulking around the areas with pre-existing architecture as cover, the soldier found a sufficiently open area somewhere within the red void, and yelled at the top of his lungs.  
  
  
As he expected, the nightmare-abomination-thing quickly made its proximity known, ceasing its quiet scuttling and beginning to approach quickly, if the rising volume of its uneven gait was anything to go off of. Then the soldier waited, arms outstretched, unmoving.  
  
  
Presently the red nightmare came into view from beyond the cloud cover not far off from the soldier, no greater than 40 or so paces. The soldier seemed to have thrown the creature off slightly, as it took its time approaching the soldier, whether it sensed a trick or was purposefully taking its time trying to unnerve him into running, the soldier couldn’t tell. When the nightmare creature reached striking distance, it stopped. Neither made a move for a few seconds, before the larger of the two decided, sensing no change of will nor trickery from the human before it, to do as it always had, it reared back slightly, and then impaled the soldier on one of its spike-like forelimbs.  
  
  
The soldier was less surprised this time when he awoke with a start, heart still pounding as if he really had just been impaled. Remembering his plan, he quickly looked around his tent, and found that same small cloaked figure from the night before, except this time it was looking directly at him, and notably lacked the red flame in its hand that it had eaten last night, bingo. His plan had worked perfectly, he had guessed right, that red monster in his dreams chased him on purpose, not necessarily just to catch him, but to make him scared, to draw things out. This in turn, must help that small demon in front of him get those red flames it’s eating. Well it wouldn’t be doing that for much longer, all he had to do now was stri-  
  
  
_**Clap...clap...clap**_  
  
  
“Bravo, bravo indeed, a truly splendid performance, like nothing I’ve ever seen from your kind before. Do you by chance practice improv?”  
  
  
It spoke? It can speak? Why is it clapping for him? All these questions rushed through his head as he stared at the thing before him, but before he could answer any of them, it continued.  
  
  
“I must say though, such a unique performance does leave me a little sad, as this is effectively checkmate, I can’t very well harvest the flame of one such as yourself. As you no longer burn within your dreams to begin with. By facing what you formerly feared without flinching, any fear you may have felt in the moment is naught but an ember in this world.”  
  
  
It doesn’t matter what this thing has to say, it’s been attacking imperial soldiers, so it must perish.  
  
  
“This is where our dance ends I’m sorry to say, it’s been quite pleasant you should know, but I should be taking my leave, we’ve all got to eat somehow you know.”  
  
  
As it said that, the small figure stepped into a deep bow, one arm coming out from under its cloak and positioned across its chest, but more importantly, with its eyes directly towards the ground. The soldier grabbed his unsheathed sword he planted next to himself before bed, just for this purpose. Acting quickly, he swung the sword up and out, aimed just below what he could surmise was the creature’s chin, right along its neck.  
  
  
**CRACK**  
  
  
The soldier’s blade landed home, knocking the small creature out of its bow into an equally deep reverse bow, but to the soldier's surprise, not only did the small creature’s head stay planted firmly on its shoulders (albeit noticeably cracked around the area of the strike and likely bleeding), it even managed to keep it’s footing. The soldier took a ready stance, he’d finish what he started with that first blow one way or another.  
  
  
Still reared all the way back, the small creature could be heard growling briefly before it said, simply and quietly _“that’s not a very polite way to treat a dance partner.”_ Pressing the advantage of his opponent’s bad footing, the soldier moved to attack again, bringing his sword into a crushing overhead swing, which he had no reason to think it wouldn't land home like his last strike.  
  
  
And then the thing screeched  
  
  
Whipping it’s head back forward as the soldier’s sword came down, the small thing before him let out a screech that was simultaneously debilitatingly loud yet somehow quiet enough to not audibly rouse anyone from the surrounding tents. The soldier found he was unable to move as the thing screeched, as if by some magical force, he was forced to endure the deafening cry of whatever it was that stood before him.  
  
  
And when it stopped screeching, it lunged, and it, no,  _he, he. was. **furious.**_  
  
  
\---  
  
  
“Didja hear about what happened to the lieutenant last night?”  
  
  
“Yeah, must’ve been one of those crazy bugs the commander told us we’d be up against, I don’t know of anything from this continent that can sneak past watch, leave that many slash marks AND burns, and still get out undetected.”  
  
  
“Ya figure maybe it’s got something to do with all the bad dreams the men keep reporting?”  
  
  
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was, I’ll see if I can get it brought up to one of the higher ups, maybe they’ll set up a trap for this thing, whatever it is.”  
  
  
\---  
  
  
Far from either of the two soldier’s hearing range, a young troupe master cleans his claws in a small stream.  
  
  
“...The nerve of that one! Has he never danced before?!” The Nightmare King to-be winced slightly as he raised his voice, caressing his injured chin for a moment before continuing. “Consider that the last time I ever take my eyes off one of them to bow.” He grumbled slightly before adding “disrespectful softies, all of them.”

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, how's that for second piece improvement? I like how this one turned out much more than the first story. Perhaps I'm finally getting into the swing of this whole "creative writing" dealio.
> 
> In case anyone was wondering, I basically envisioned that nightmare creature at the start as the scariest thing Grimmkiddo could think of, aka "Nosk, but red with a black belly, and a troupe mask with glowing red eyes like the Grimmkin nightmares."


End file.
